Of course you want faster page loading…Why? Because,

Faster Page Loading >> Decreases time for viewers to get distracted while on your website

Faster Page Loading >> Increases your Google SEO value

Good Solution: Faster Page Loading with Full Page Caching for Magento

With Magento Enterprise, one of the perks of paying $14,400 a year is you receive full page caching which will result in site load times of around 3-5 seconds. A full page caching system occurs when you have visited a website before, and the server basically takes a screenshot of the webpage and reproduces it upon request. This decreases the load time and produces the page back to the user within 3-5 seconds. The only issues with full page caching is that it requires MySQL and PHP to load for every page each time it is requested.

Best Solution: Faster Page Loading with Varnish for Magento

Full Page Caching is a great way to speed up your site, but what if you are trying to achieve the optimal site load speed? According to Google research every 0.1 second improvement in site load speed there is a 1% increase in sales. If you are wanting to achieve a 1 second decrease in page load, down to page loads at 2 seconds or even 1 second, Varnish for Magento is your best solution.

At Customer Paradigmwe highly recommend for the best optimization that you install Varnish in addition to Full Page Caching to increase your site page load time. They compliment each other to achieve the fastest page load times. To explain the diagram above, the solid lines represent the path of requests your computer goes through when your page is already cached. The additional dotted line represents an extra request that occurs if you do not have caching. As for varnish, the html of static entities such as images or texts are loaded from cache, then Ajax sends a request for the dynamic parts such as “Recent Articles” for that category page or dynamic sidebar filters. Finally, JSON responds with how the dynamic information is to be structured as a JSON array.

Basically, when you install Varnish and a server has produced the request to anyone, the server is able to step in before php kicks in and reproduce the requested page. This decreases a large step in the database, substantially decreasing the page load time.

When a website does not have Varnish or Full Page Caching the server goes through a long process. Each time the server received a request for a page such as /about.html there is a communication with the database to reproduce the html for that page, instead of reserving the page with Varnish directly from a past request.

Magento Varnish: Benefits & Drawbacks

Drawbacks: Let’s start with the bad news first

The only drawbacks are when you make updates to your site you have to clear the cache when adding new content or changing things on a page, such as making changes to a post on your WordPress blog. For example, when you create a post and then you realize you have misspelled something, and you go in and edit your WordPress, the change will not show until you have cleared the cache for your site. This occurs with varnish because you have been served the blog page already, and the server will re-serve the same page upon request.

Benefits: The Bottom Line

In this case, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. Installing varnish on an eCommerce site is a no-brainer decision.

Increase in Conversion – A faster page load time increases the potential for conversions, which directly contributes to your bottom line of profits. If for every .1 second decrease in load time, there is a 2% increase in conversions, where is the loss?

Varnish is a one time set-up – Many applications or extensions require updates with the development of the eCommerce software, not with Varnish. It is a one time installation, that will last for the life of your website.

Google Increase in SEO Value – Google has determined that site load time affects your ranking, Google’s end goal is to provide the best user experience to the end user. If your site is the best for shoes, but it takes 8 seconds to load your page this will directly affect your ranking for keywords associated with shoes. Decrease page load time >> Increase SEO value.

Better User Experience – We’ve all done it, you click on a website and watch the loading icon spin and spin, eventually we all click back to the Google search and find a page that loads before we have time to move our cursor. Decrease page load time >> Decrease bounce rate from your page.

If you are interested in installing Full Page Caching or Varnish on your website for optimal speed, conversion rates, SEO value and site traffic contact Customer Paradigm now at 303.473.4400 to talk to a real person today or fill out the contact form below.